The Celtics [team stats] certainly have had their share of injuries this season, but some players are saying the problems aren’t all physical.
Cracks apparently are beginning to appear within a team that preaches togetherness before each game.
As the Celtics prepare to get back to work against Miami tonight, the subject of the team’s lapses in focus was raised. Doc Rivers constantly tells his players to avoid getting bored with the process, but it seems that has been the case.
Rajon Rondo [stats] concurred to a degree. Then he spoke of a deeper issue.
“We are getting bored with it some,” he said, “but I think it’s a little bit of different agendas maybe creeping in. It just all depends. You know, I think if we all had the right spirit as far as one goal, one thing in common, I think we’d be a lot better.”
Rondo had hinted at trouble after Friday’s game in Atlanta when asked about the current team encountering adversity it hasn’t faced since the acquisitions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
“It’s a different team this year,” Rondo said then. “That’s our problem. A couple of years ago, we didn’t have the same team. We had the same main guys, but it’s still a team effort, from the first guy to the 15th guy.”
He still wasn’t getting into specifics in this latest discussion, but his comments were far stronger.
“I can’t really elaborate on it too much, but I think we’ve just got to be a team with no agendas,” Rondo said. “We’ve got to play unselfish, you know? That’s on defense and offense. You’ve got to want the best for the next man out there regardless if you’re in the game playing well or you’re out of the game not playing well.”
Asked if he and the Celts had tried to clear the air on this, he said, “We haven’t really been talking about it, but you’ve just got to know.
“In the locker room, you can feel it,” Rondo added. “You don’t feel like it’s the same continuity and camaraderie in the locker room as it was the first year. The first year, it was a crazy spirit in the locker room. But now it doesn’t feel the same. It’s not the same right now. We’ve got to find a way to get that back somehow, some way.”
Kendrick Perkins [stats] spoke along similar lines.
“I think each person’s just got to take (himself) out of the equation,” he said. “You know, whatever you’ve got going on the personal side - whatever you’re trying to get done - just take it out and just think all about team.”
Paul Pierce [stats] acknowledged the Celts haven’t been paying attention to detail, and he, too, seemed frustrated by the lack of cohesiveness on the floor. The club is among the best shooting teams, but it has been giving the ball up too often and not working hard enough on the boards.
“We were talking about it,” Pierce said. “Earlier in the year we didn’t turn the ball over much and we won a lot of games. We score when we don’t give up the ball pretty much.
“It’s just the little things, man. That’s what we always talk about. Little things like rebounds and turnovers, stuff like that. If we can take care of those things, we’ll go back to winning games. We’ll be more consistent.”
Pierce then shook his head and added, “It’s like you have the answers to the test and you still fail. It’s just like that. We know the answers.”
The last statement was repeated to Rondo.
“That’s a great quote,” he said. “I can’t really describe it any better. He’s exactly right. We’re just not getting it done.”
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